The rain had not let up.
Anne ran, her lungs burning, each breath a ragged gasp swallowed by the storm. Her clothes were ruined—the pink skirt heavy with mud and water, the white shirt plastered to her skin, the leather jacket a heavy weight on her shoulders. Her hair running down her face.
But she didn't feel the cold. She didn't feel the exhaustion. All she felt was a hot wire of panic and purpose, pulling her forward.
Alpha Scraggy ran beside her, its body a low, determined shadow.
The warehouse loomed ahead.
Anne skidded to a stop before the elevator, her hands slapping against the metal door. She fumbled for the access card in her soaked bag, her fingers trembling.
But Alpha Scraggy had other things in mind. It reared back, and slammed its fist into the control panel. Sparks flew, metal crunched, and with a groan of protesting hydraulics, the heavy doors shuddered and began to slide apart.
The elevator is now before them.
Anne didn't pause. She went inside with Alpha Scraggy and tapped the down button hastily.
The descent felt endless. But finally, the elevator stopped.
The door opened, and they burst into the Xycle headquarters.
Grunts froze, staring at Anne's disheveled look and the fierce Alpha Scraggy storming past. The whispers started instantly, but Anne was deaf to them. Her destination was the only thing that mattered.
The doors to the central command hissed open as she approached, reading her biometrics.
Martin stood before the massive central holographic display, his posture rigid, hands clasped behind his back. Sarah was a whirlwind of motion at her console, her fingers a blur over the keyboards.
"They are heading to the east. But we don't know what part of east. Should I chase them myself, boss?" Sarah said, her voice in hasty.
Martin didn't turn from the display.
"No. You will not chase them." He said to Sarah. "You will coordinate from here. You are the nerve center. Without you, this operation has no brain."
He finally pivoted, his gaze sweeping over Anne. He took in her heaving chest, the mud, the wild-eyed desperation, and the Alpha Scraggy.
He took a step towards Anne, his presence filling the space between the humming machines.
"I assume you've got a plan. You're with him after all."
"I do..." Anne gasped out, the words raw but clear. She tapped the side of her head, then pointed east. "Decidueye. I tagged it with a long-range tracker before it followed the helicopter. It's in pursuit right now. We have a live signal."
For the first time, Martin's rigid posture shifted.
"Is that so?" His voice was low, considering. Then, he turned his back to her. "Sarah. Is John available?"
Sarah's fingers flew, pulling up another status screen.
"John Wellingham is currently... sleeping... in his office in the easter sector."
A flicker of something irritation crossed Martin's face at the word sleeping. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by cold calculation.
"Wake him. He has five minutes to get ready or else..."
He turned back to Anne, his eyes sharp.
"Show me where your bird is."
Anne strode past Martin, her boots leaving faint prints on the floor. She leaned over Sarah's secondary console, her fingers, still trembling slightly from adrenaline and cold, flying across the keypad. She input a twelve-digit alphanumeric code—a personal encryption key linked to her Rotom-Comm and, by extension, to the tracker disc she'd slapped onto Decidueye.
The central holographic display shimmered and reconfigured. The tactical map of the eastern mountains vanished, replaced by a live, green-tinted feed from Decidueye's perspective. The image was shaky, blurred by rain and speed, but unmistakable.
They were looking through its eyes, high above the storm-wracked landscape. Below, cutting through the cloud layer, was the black shape of the Rocket helicopter.
"He's maintaining a safe tail distance." Anne murmured, more to herself than anyone, her eyes glued to the screen. "Good boy."
The helicopter began to descend towards the peak of a mountain. As it dropped, Decidueye's view adjusted, zooming in with preternatural avian focus.
The mountain face wasn't solid. As the helicopter drew nearer, a section of what appeared to be a rock split open. A massive camouflaged hangar door, perfectly disguised, slid aside, revealing a lit tunnel leading deep into the heart of the mountain.
The helicopter slowed, hovered for a moment, then slipped inside.
The hangar door began to slide shut.
On the feed, Decidueye banked sharply, pulling up and away, seeking a perch on a nearby rocky outcrop. The view stabilized, now a fixed shot of the mountainside. The door sealed seamlessly, leaving no trace of the entrance. It was as if the mountain had swallowed the aircraft whole.
Martin stared at the image, his expression unreadable.
"Giovanni... you are really settling in in my region."
He turned from the screen, his gaze sweeping over Anne, then locking onto Sarah.
"Sarah, send the order. Full mobilization of the Eastern Sector. All available operatives, all air and ground units. We're going to erase that mountain along with Team Rocket."
Sarah's eyes widened fractionally, but her fingers were already moving, translating his words into a cascade of encrypted commands.
"And tell Elite Operative Makarell to give Anne a flight to the eastern sector."
Martin stepped close to Anne.
"Elias is important for our goal. Take him back. Protect him even if it cost your life. Don't let him die."
***
"Mama, why is brother always training?" The little boy asked.
Her mother, who has a white hair and gentle, blue eyes, picked him up to sit on her lap. She hummed a soft harmony, then give him a gentle smile.
"Your brother wants to be strong like your papa. He wants to protect us."
The little boy gave her a confused look, but it quickly melt away to a smile.
"When is papa coming back? I miss him."
"Hmm... your papa is busy. He won't be back till next month. But I'm sure he'll bring back a lot of chocolates!"
The little boy pouted, a tiny frown creasing his brow.
"But I don't want chocolates. I want papa."
His mother's smile softened, a flicker of something sad and deep passing through her gentle blue eyes. She leaned forward and gently bopped his nose with her finger.
"Boop! I know, my little Elias. But papa is doing important work. He's making the world safer for us. So we have to be brave and wait, okay?"
The boy—Elias—rubbed his nose, but the pout slowly dissolved into a reluctant smile under his mother's loving gaze.
"Okay, mama. I'll be brave like brother!"
...
Consciousness returned to Elias in a nauseating wave. The first sensation was the cold—a deep, metallic chill seeping through his clothes from the floor. The second was a dull, throbbing ache behind his eyes. The third was the silence.
He was in a cell. A featureless cube of brushed steel. No windows. A single, recessed light panel in the ceiling. The only furnishing was a narrow bench fused to the wall.
He pushed himself up, his limbs heavy, the last vestiges of the paralytic net's charge making his muscles feel heavy. His glasses were gone. The world was a soft blur. He rubbed his temples, trying to force the ache away.
And then it hit him.
The smell of fresh-cut grass and baking bread. A woman's laugh, light and warm. The feeling of small, strong arms wrapped around his neck from behind.
He gasped, the sound loud in the silent cell. He staggered to his feet, his hand pressed to his chest as if he could hold the phantom feeling in. His breath came in short, sharp pants.
Then another memory came in his mind.
The smell of ozone and smoke. A deafening roar that wasn't a pokemon cry. A metal falling on the ceiling hitting a woman's head.
"No...!"
The word was a choked whisper. Elias stumbled back, his shoulder hitting the steel wall. He slid down it, clutching his head as the fragments tore through his mind's careful, constructed emptiness.
The gentle hum of a lullaby. White hair, blue eyes smiling down at him.
"My little Elias..."
"NOOO!!" Elias gripped his head tighter, slamming it down on the steel wall, until blood was dripping on his forehead.
In that moment of raw, self-inflicted pain, the cell door hissed open.
Ariana stood in the doorway. She'd changed from her soaked suit into a dry version of the same crimson ensemble.
A slow, condescending smile touched her lips.
"Tsk, tsk. Losing your composure so quickly?" She purred, stepping inside. The door slid shut behind her, locking with a definitive thunk. "I expected more from the boy who took down Archer. All that stoic posturing on the podium... was it just an act?"
Elias didn't look at her. His gaze was turned inward, fixed on the ghosts only he could see. His breath hitched, a ragged, broken sound.
Ariana circled him slowly, her heels clicking on the metal floor.
"They call it sensory deprivation backlash. The mind, when isolated and stressed, sometimes tries to fill the void. It dredges up old unpleasant things." She stopped in front of him, looking down. "Are the memories unpleasant, Elias? Are they making you... crazy?"
Slowly, Elias lifted his head. The blood smeared across his brow, dripping into his eye. His gaze, when it finally found hers, was not the blank stare she'd seen on the news feed. It was a shattered mirror, reflecting a thousand broken pieces of pain, confusion, and a dawning, volcanic rage.
"What... do you want with me?"
Ariana's smile widened.
"Good boy. You're asking the right question." Her hand, which had been tucked casually in the pocket of her crimson coat, slid out. Clutched in her fingers was a syringe. It was small, filled with blue liquid.
She held it up, turning it slightly so the light caught the fluid within.
"Look, I'm going to put this liquid inside of you. This contains a key. Brace yourself, this will shaken your will."
Elias's eyes locked on the syringe. The cold blue liquid seemed to pulse with a sinister light of its own.
Ariana stepped closer, the click of her heels echoing in the silence of the cell. She knelt down in front of him, bringing them eye-to-eye.
"Don't worry..." She murmured, her voice a honeyed poison. "This won't hurt. Much."
Before Elias could even process her words, her other hand shot out, gripping his jaw with surprising strength. She forced his head to the side, exposing the pale skin of his neck.
He tried to struggle, but his limbs were sluggish, weighted down by an unnatural fatigue. It was as if the very air in the cell was thickening, pressing down on him.
The needle of the syringe gleamed for a second before she pressed it against his jugular.
The blue liquid emptied into his bloodstream.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, a wave of numbness washed over him, starting at the injection site and flooding through his veins.
His vision swam more. The cell intensely blurred, the sharp edges melting into a haze of grey. Ariana's triumphant smile stretched and distorted.
And then, the void inside him began to fill.
His own voice echoed in the hollow cavern of his mind, clear as it had been in the forest, in the base: "I want to understand everyone." The reason he had joined Xycle, the reason he had fought, the reason he had opened himself to the terrifying, beautiful chaos of emotion. To understand.
The image of his mother's gentle blue eyes flickered, a ghost in the grey haze. Understanding her...
Then, another image, sharper, more recent: Caesar's face on the podium, etched with that profound, inexplicable grief as he looked at Elias. Understanding him...
Ellen's bright, confused smile. Faith's analytical calm. Anne's lovely smile. Rein's bitter rivalry. Shan's burning conviction. Martin's cold vision. Sarah's sharp efficiency. Krookodile's trust. Staravia's cry. Alpha Scraggy's defiant protection. Understanding them...
A kaleidoscope of faces, of bonds, of conflicts, of dreams. A world he had sworn to comprehend.
The numbness began to recede, burned away by the sudden, intense clarity of that singular purpose. It was the core of him, the engine that had driven him from the ashes. It was his.
And then, the grey haze before his eyes darkened. It coalesced, swirling into two distinct points of light.
Two points of searing, malevolent purple.
They were eyes. Fiery, pitiless, and vast. They stared into him, through him, from a place of ancient, incomprehensible power.